“Sorry to hear that,” I respond, but what I’d like to say is that according to the health data, it’s too early for our parents to be so sick. Mine are only in their sixties, and it’s the twenty-first century. Three of my four grandparents, across two countries, lived into their nineties, one past one hundred. All of them died healthy, but my brother couldn’t make it to forty. Each generation in this country exhibits poorer health outcomes than the previous generation—the fallout from decades of growing economic inequality. In fact, life expectancy in Ireland is higher than it is here for Irish
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